


A Life Worth Living

by MrToddWilkins (orphan_account)



Category: Astronaut RPF, NASA RPF, Riverdale (TV 2017) RPF, sprousehart - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Different Challenger accident, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, IN SPACE!, NASA AU, Sprousehart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 08:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15926555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MrToddWilkins





	A Life Worth Living

**November 16,1984**

**8:55 am CST**

**Johnson Space Center**

Putting together space crews was the part of Ed White’s job he liked most:in fact,he didn’t even bother to hide it. The chief astronaut and deputy chief astronaut had input,of course,and White made sure to listen to the Mission Operations people as well,though because of the organizational animosities within NASA he often acted against their wishes. But at some point he had to sit down at his brand new Commodore 64 and write a decision that within the week would be announced to the world. In this case,the decision concerned who would fly the  _Apollo 97_ mission sometime early in February 1986.

At the moment,the astronaut corps had 162 active members,with 42 candidates coming down the pipeline and at least another 25 next year. Ten were on various details, like working on the Venus Radar Mapper at JPL or proselytizing to Congress for next year’s budget. This left 152. Of these,59 were either on a mission,assigned to one in the future,or supporting one. This left 93. Even that,according to some,was too much.

But White knew different. Twelve missions a year times an average of five per mission left sixty. That was a fairly decent number. But White didn’t necessarily see it that way. Space wasn’t routine,not if one factored in risks. The risk of loss of crew was about 1 in 125,which was already leading to quite the rate of attrition. White had enough people for four years of continuous missions and figured that that was enough. Usually half of them were in some kind of training,while everybody else handled some assignment or other,like serving as a capcom for  _Skylab,_ testing out new lunar landing procedures in SAIL,or practicing shuttle landing approaches at Ellington.

Naturally,there were a few key data points that controlled White’s decision. The launch window for  _Apollo 97_ opened on January 28,1986 and ran until February 15. The mission would carry a crew of four on Skylab Expedition 52. A veteran commanded each crew where possible,with the pilot usually also being a veteran. Given the relatively routine nature of this mission,however,it might be better to have a rookie pilot. The two mission specialists,again,could be rookies or experienced.

The pool of potential commanders was rather small. The first choice was Ken Mattingly,but he was already training to command the second flight of the space shuttle  _Atlantis._ Henry Hartsfield was another option,but he was in training for a flight to Moonlab. The third choice,by contrast,was veteran commander Bob Crippen, who had just come off of a tour of Europe. Consulting his matrix,White checked off Crippen’s name. The computer immediately listed the next available pilot,a 1980 selectee named Lili Reinhart. She was a rookie,but she would do. 

Next,the computer listed three mission specialists Crippen had flown with. One had just flown on a Shuttle mission and was now working in the procedures branch of the Astronaut Office. Another was training as a Capcom for the first planned astronaut residency on  _Mir._ A third had completed another mission since he had flown with Crippen.

 


End file.
